I haven't got very much to say
about my National Service. But I will say this much about the time it took for my life as a conscript to come to pass - that all this while, I have never soared to such dizzying heights, nor sunken to such crippling depths in all my life, and in spite of everything, it has been time needed, and time granted to me for making amends.
A couple of things:
I miss my job. Not emotionally, no. I am simply feeling the absence of familiarity, of routine. The certainty of belonging. It has only been two days since my discharge, yet I am already feeling a little lost.
I have a few regrets. I do not think that I have treated certain individuals fairly. I have seen the best and worst in them, yet any assessment of my observations is incomplete without due criticism of my own behaviour. Progressively, one can easily do so much worse, I have found, than the fools that he scorns and the wrongdoers that he shuns; no good can come of any sort of alienation and contempt.
And there you have it. A chapter of my life, written.
Now, forward.
A couple of things:
I miss my job. Not emotionally, no. I am simply feeling the absence of familiarity, of routine. The certainty of belonging. It has only been two days since my discharge, yet I am already feeling a little lost.
I have a few regrets. I do not think that I have treated certain individuals fairly. I have seen the best and worst in them, yet any assessment of my observations is incomplete without due criticism of my own behaviour. Progressively, one can easily do so much worse, I have found, than the fools that he scorns and the wrongdoers that he shuns; no good can come of any sort of alienation and contempt.
And there you have it. A chapter of my life, written.
Now, forward.
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